Cynthia Dowaliby is in an unimaginable situation. A jury has decided that her husband, whom she loves and supports, killed her daughter. A judge has acquitted her of the same murder charges. Nonetheless, she faces a lingering public suspicion that she somehow was involved in the death. Instructed by her attorneys not to testify in court or to speak in detail to the press, she now tells her side of the story. The most unfathomable tragedy of all, of course, would be if neither he nor she had done anything wrong. That, she says, is precisely the case.
Introduction
In November 1988, Cynthia and David Dowaliby of south suburban Midlothian were charged with the murder of Cynthia`s daughter from a previous marriage, 7-year-old Jaclyn. In April 1990, the case went to trial.
Before final arguments were heard in the case May 1, Cook County Criminal Court Judge Richard E. Neville, citing insufficient evidence, took the unusual step of acquitting Cynthia. A jury found David guilty. He is now in Cook County Jail awaiting sentencing July 9.
Since the week after David`s conviction, Cynthia has discussed the events leading up to and following the trial with David Protess, a professor at Northwestern University`s Medill School of Journalism and an investigative reporter, and free-lance writer Mary Ann Williams.
The conversations began May 15 at a Northwestern University symposium in which Cynthia participated as a panelist. The symposium, ”The Other Side of the Story,” was not open to the public. Williams and Protess have spoken with Cynthia daily since then.
They interviewed her by telephone, often several times a day. Sometimes they called her. Sometimes she called them. They met in coffee shops and restaurants, and, on May 31, she agreed to a four-hour, tape-recorded conversation at Medill`s Chicago campus. Free-lance photographer J. Carl Ganter also attended this meeting.
The Dowalibys` attorneys attended none of the interviews.
According to Protess and Williams, Cynthia Dowaliby at first was guarded. She explained that the family believed it had been treated badly by the press, and she was reluctant to speak. Over time, Protess and Williams say, she developed a sense that ”going public” was a way she could fight on behalf of her family-murdered Jaclyn, jailed David, son Davey (whose custody she has lost), and newborn daughter Carli.
Later, she grew increasingly animated. She often initiated the discussions, and seemed to look forward to them.
She said she recognizes that there are people who doubt the version of events presented earlier by her family and her lawyers. Talking about them in detail now, she said, would give the public more information with which to assess her and her husband.
”I`ve held this all inside for two years,” she said at one point, ”and now I feel I`m ready to burst.”
What follows is not an attempt to deal comprehensively with the evidence presented by both sides in this case. It is simply Cynthia Dowaliby`s story.
`The first day I was allowed to visit David in maximum-security isolation in Cook County Jail was May 18 this year, the day after what would have been Jaclyn`s ninth birthday.” (David had been moved there from the jail at Cermak Health Services, where he had been under routine psychiatric observation.)
”I hadn`t seen him in four days. I walked up a tall flight of stairs and knocked on a heavy door. An eye peered through at me. A man who seemed like a dungeon keeper slowly opened the creaking door. He ordered me to stand by the wall.” (She was frisked, and her belongings were put through a metal detector.)
”I was led past six cubicles where inmates were sitting with their families. In the seventh cubicle, David was waiting for me on the other side of a thick glass partition. When I saw him, I started to cry. But I stopped so he wouldn`t see me.
”I sat at a wooden desk across from David, who also sat at a wooden desk. The glass ran from the top of the desk to the ceiling in front and on either side of me and of him. I desperately wanted to touch him, but there was no way to do that. I put my hand against the glass and picked up the phone. It felt cold.
”We talked for 15 minutes. It seemed like a moment. When we said goodbye, I watched him walk away and noticed that he looked ashen and that he had lost at least 20 pounds. I thought, `If only I could take him home with me, I`d cook him some lasagna, his favorite food.`
”As I left, I looked at the courthouse and realized that it was the first time I had been back at 26th and California since the trial. It made me remember the events that led up to the verdict-eating together every day in the cafeteria, walking past the reporters and wanting to speak out, wanting to tell our side. It was like a dream.
”When I finally got to my car, I sat there unable to move for five minutes. I asked myself: `How did we all get here? How did this all happen?”` The first time they met was by chance. Cynthia Borrelli Guess, 19, was married to another man. She was pregnant with her daughter, Jaclyn, when she went to the home of a friend, Gene O`Connor, to drop off a Christmas present for O`Connor and his girlfriend, Peggy Belavich. A friend of O`Connor`s and Belavich`s, David Dowaliby, 24, happened to be there, and he accepted the present for them.
The second time Cynthia and David met, Jaclyn was a few months old. Cynthia had become separated from her first husband before her daughter was born and was getting divorced. Peggy set up a date between Cynthia and David. The two couples went to ChicagoFest. But Cynthia says she wasn`t ready for any kind of relationship at that point, and that was that.
The third time they met was at Gene and Peggy`s wedding, in summer 1982. Cynthia was a bridesmaid and David was a groomsman. Peggy and Gene arranged it so the two of them stood up together.
”We knew they had planned it,” Cynthia said. ”We didn`t start dating right away, but that`s when it all started.”
”At precisely 10:30 p.m. every night, David and I stop whatever we are doing to think of each other. We think of our love for each other, we say a prayer together that God will help us, we also think about living in our own home together when this is all over.”
When she introduced David Dowaliby to 18-month-old Jaclyn, Cynthia said, the two took to each other immediately.
”She could hardly talk and she kept saying, `Da Da,` instead of David,” Cynthia said. ”I said: `No, Jaclyn. David.` But when I heard her say that, it hit me in the heart.”
”He wasn`t one of those men who just like babies; he liked Cyndi`s baby,” said David`s mother, Anna Dowaliby. ”I remember when David and Cyndi brought Jaclyn to the house the first time. David carried her in. He said,
`This is Cyndi`s little girl.` He was so proud of her.”
Cynthia and David became engaged on New Year`s Eve 1982. They were married the following October. Jaclyn was their flower girl.
Six months later, on April 18, 1984, Cynthia`s 22nd birthday, David took a day off from his foreman`s job at Rax Erecting, a firm that installs industrial shelving, and went to court to adopt Jaclyn.
”Most people didn`t know Jaclyn was adopted,” said Cynthia`s mother, Mary (Borrelli) Malia. ”David always said she was his daughter, and this just made it official.”
”Every time, during the trial, when someone would refer to David as Jaclyn`s stepfather, it would upset him. No one had ever called him that before.”
The Dowalibys lived in a ranch house in south suburban Riverdale. David continued to work at Rax, while Cynthia took a part-time job as a nurse`s aide at Oak Forest Hospital. She also took courses at Moraine Valley College. Their son, David Jr., was born June 25, 1984.
Cynthia said David Sr. and Jaclyn continued to be close.
”We took her fishing for the first time when she was only three,”
Cynthia said. ”I had Davey in a carrier on my back. David showed Jaclyn how to hold a fishing pole. She loved it.”
In late summer 1987, the Dowalibys moved to Midlothian to a brick ranch-style house belonging to Anna Dowaliby. Anna moved to the basement, and the rest of the family took over the first floor.
”We were waiting until we could get a loan to buy the house from her, but we decided to move in early so Jaclyn could start classes in the school she`d end up at,” Cynthia said.
In 1st grade, Jaclyn joined the Brownies.
”Jaclyn and David went to the father-daughter dance for the Brownies (on Valentine`s Day), which was special because Valentine`s Day was David`s birthday,” Cynthia said. ”She wore her favorite dress, her Christmas dress, red chiffon blouse with a ruffley skirt and lace at the hem. They bowled together in the father-daughter league and won a trophy.”
Cynthia continued to work and go to school part time, sometimes not arriving home until 8:30 p.m.
”When I got home, David would have the kids clean and ready for bed. I would read to them. When Davey would get tired, I would take him to bed and come back and read with Jaclyn a little longer.
”Her favorite book was `Nicky Upstairs and Downstairs.` When she learned all the words, she would read it to me.”
”Now I`m almost always around people. I live in my mother`s condo in Tinley Park. It`s me, my mom, my stepfather and Carli.” (Carli is Cynthia and David`s daughter, born July 1, 1989. Carli is in temporary custody of Cynthia`s mother with whom Cynthia is living. Davey is in the custody of David`s twin sister and her husband, and Cynthia visits him frequently).
”After the verdict, my family and friends stayed with me night after night. They sat with me until I fell asleep. Now around 11 to 12 at night, I pray. This is my time, when Carli is asleep and the house is quiet. My daily prayer is, `Bring David home.”`
Anna Dowaliby`s house in Midlothian, Cynthia said, required some repairs when she and David moved in that summer, and immediately they began doing the work. Any extra money, she said, went into major expenses such as remodeling the kitchen and redoing the family room.
”While we were remodeling, Jaclyn would pick up scraps of the wallpaper, and she would make little collages with them,” Cynthia said.
Davey was given the room that had belonged to David Dowaliby`s younger brother, Brian. The door to that room, Anna Dowaliby said, bore a fist mark from a temper tantrum Brian had thrown when he was 16.
”There were more important things to take care of than a door,” Cynthia said. So, in the meantime, she hung a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles poster over the mark. (After the trial, one juror would say that in looking at photos of the interior of the house, that fist mark on the door had been instrumental in convincing him that David Dowaliby was a violent man.)
David found time to build the children a backyard playhouse. ”They loved that,” Cynthia said.
Jaclyn would help with the yardwork. According to Cynthia, ”She would help water the sod. There were little jobs she would do that helped the whole family.”
Cynthia said Jaclyn never knew that she was not David Dowaliby`s biological daughter. ”We planned to tell her, but we were waiting until the time was right.”
”One time, after my nightly phone call from David, we arranged that, after we hung up, we would both make tea. It was our way, even though we were apart, of being together. Together, we think about Jaclyn.”
Jackie Guess, Jaclyn`s paternal grandmother, lived in the same area as the Dowalibys. Cynthia allowed Jaclyn and her former mother-in-law to spend time together. She said she felt it was important for Jaclyn to remain in touch with the family of her natural father, James ”Jimmy” Guess.
”Jaclyn always felt she was special,” Cynthia said. ”She had three grandmothers.”
Jaclyn visited the Guesses about twice a year. Every six or seven months, Jackie Guess would call because her own daughter, Sybil, and Jaclyn`s first cousins were coming to visit from Lombard. Cynthia let Jaclyn go to play with her cousins, sometimes allowing her stay the night, but she always did so with reservations.
Cynthia had separated from Jimmy Guess shortly before Jaclyn was born. He was 22 then. She and Jaclyn moved in with her mother. When Jaclyn was a month old, Cynthia said, Guess entered the home through an upstairs window. Accoring to Cynthia, her stepsister saw him and screamed, and he fled. Cynthia said she believes Guess` intent was to abduct Jaclyn. A police report was filed, but Guess denied the break-in and was never charged.
From that time on, Cynthia said, she had almost no contact with Jimmy Guess. During her visits with Jaclyn, Jackie Guess told Cynthia that Jimmy was working in Texas. Then she said he was in Florida. What Cynthia didn`t know then-or at the time of Jaclyn`s disappearance-was that Jimmy Guess was in a Florida penitentiary serving time for sexual battery and threatening with a deadly weapon.
”When David adopted Jaclyn, Mrs. Guess told me that it killed her, and it hurt Jim,” Cynthia said.
Even with Jackie Guess` assurances that Jimmy was out of town, Cynthia said she was anxious about Jaclyn`s visits. ”I was worried about Jaclyn being around Tim Guess,” Jimmy`s younger brother.
”Whenever I saw him, he would be walking around looking dazed. He was always dirty. There were periods of time when I wouldn`t hear from Mrs. Guess. Then she would call and say it would be OK for Jaclyn to come over. Once she told me that when she didn`t call, it was because of what was going on at her house. I knew Tim Guess was on psychiatric medication, and I sensed he gave her trouble.” That Tim Guess was on psychiatric medication would be confirmed later in testimony at the trial by his mother.
